Evans wins lottery with commission for daily draw

Chris Evans, the DJ turned enfant terrible of television, has chosen the National Lottery as the vehicle for the next phase in his comeback as a programme producer.

His UMTV production company has won a one-year commission to make the lottery's daily live draw for Challenge, a digital channel owned by cable operator Telewest. The show will start next month.

UMTV will also move into advertiser-funded output by producing a series of Challenge shows funded by Camelot, the National Lottery operator.

Read the article: www.media.guardian.co.uk

DVR users: most voracious consumers of all media

NIELSEN MAY HAVE given the TV industry a reprieve on how digital video recorders are actually impacting TV viewing, but new research indicates DVR households are some of the most dynamic consumers are an especially important segment of the media population and their behavior likely is affecting all media, not just television.

The findings, which are part of Knowledge Networks' Fall 2004 Multimedia Mentor survey, show that DVR owners are bigger users of media across the board, spending 22 percent more time with media than the average person.

Interestingly, their media consumption patterns are particularly acute for print media and the Internet. They spend 48 percent more time with newspapers, 43 percent more time with magazines and 40 percent more time with the Internet than the average consumer.

While their consumption patters are least pronounced in terms of television – indexing only 17 percent more than the average TV viewer – that likely is a function of the fact that they are controlling more of the content they do watch on television.

Last week, Nielsen announced a plan to delay reporting of DVR usage in its local and national TV ratings panels until January 2006, a move that many TV outlets are happy with, but which Madison Avenue is disappointed with given the profound impact DVRs are believed to be having with TV viewing patterns. Since their inception, Nielsen has been bypassing these households altogether as “technically difficult.”

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Pepsi wins movie product placement 'oscar'

LONDON (Reuters) - PepsiCo Inc. may be only the world's No. 2 soft drinks maker, but in terms of product placement on the big screen it outranked every other brand on the planet in 2004.

Brandcameo, a product placement offshoot of consultants Brandchannel (www.brandchannel.com), awarded its top tongue-in-cheek "accolade" to the maker of Pepsi, Aquafina and Mountain Dew on Sunday after the Pepsi brand featured in no less than one in five No. 1 U.S. movie box office smashes last year.

Featuring in movies as diverse as "Alien vs. Predator" and "Dodgeball," Pepsi beat arch-rival Coca-Cola and its ubiquitous Coke brand into second place, where it tied with Motorola and Nike.

While Pepsi actually only featured in seven No. 1 U.S. movie hits, the scale of this achievement is illustrated by the fact that only 37 movies topped the list last year.

Read the article: www.reuters.com

Madison + Vine + Valley

Advertising Age's third annual Madison + Vine event at the Beverly Hills Hotel on Wednesday, February 16, featured senior executives from some of the leading trend-setting brands like Starbucks, Pepsi and Electronic Arts, as well as the producers who help them navigate new frontiers.

The panel, "Beyond Product Placement: Content Creation Takes Center Stage," got off to a fast start. Speakers highlighted the importance of ideas and the use of multiple channels, not just television, to achieve branded entertainment goals.

Katie Lacey, Vice President of Colas and Media at Pepsi-Cola North America, said that advertisers are struggling with how to navigate the space. "There are numerous companies that can help us. We need all sides of the business collaborating and guiding us," said Lacey. "The more that they can help guide you through the process, the better. At Pepsi, we want our key partners involved in decision making. Otherwise, we get promised things that people can't deliver," said Lacey.

Lacey isn't afraid of making mistakes: "We will keep trying new things, and it's a learning process. We make strong connections with consumers through many channels, but the backbone of our spending will still involve mass media for at least the next year."

Read the article: www.imediaconnection.com

UK net users leading TV downloads

British TV viewers lead the trend of illegally downloading US shows from the net, according to research. New episodes of 24, Desperate Housewives and Six Feet Under, appear on the web hours after they are shown in the US, said a report.

Web tracking company Envisional said 18% of downloaders were from within the UK and that downloads of TV programmes had increased by 150% in the last year. About 70% were using file-sharing program BitTorrent, the firm said.

"It's now as easy to download a pirate TV show as it is to programme a VCR," said Ben Coppin from Envisional. A typical episode of 24 was downloaded by about 100,000 people globally, said the report, and an estimated 20,000 of those were from within the UK.

Fans of many popular US TV programmes, like 24, usually have to wait weeks or months until the latest series is shown in the UK. But in some cases, said the report, people were able to watch the new episodes in Britain before US audiences on the west coast of the country.

"Missing a television show presents little problem to anyone with a basic knowledge of the internet," explained Mr Coppin. "Two clicks and your favourite programme is downloading. In effect, the internet is now a global video recorder." Exact figures are difficult to pin down, but it is thought that about 80,000 to 100,000 people in the UK download TV programmes.

Read the article: www.bbc.co.uk

Branded Entertainment moguls embrace new technologies

LOS ANGELES - The latest incarnation of the branded entertainment industry, spawned by the fear of new consumer-controlled communications technologies, is now looking to those very technologies for its ultimate salvation.

That irony -- and the many new opportunities it suggests -- were the buzz of the third annual Advertising Age Madison & Vine conference held this week at the Beverly Hills Hotel here.

In panel sessions and corridor chat, official speakers and attendees discussed the many new available means for broadcasting electronic content across a broadening range of platforms -- and the potential room for branded messages in those content streams.

A number of panelists flatly predicted that flexible thinking and skillful use of technologies from TiVo and Internet downloads to cell phones, BlackBerries, satellite radio and portable wireless gaming consoles are the missing links that will bring brands and consumers closer together than they have ever been.

For instance, Geoffrey Frost, senior vice president and chief marketing officer of Motorola and the day's keynote speaker, suggested that Silicon Valley needs to be an equal partner going forward.

"We need to recognize there's a third person in our marital bed -- technology," Mr. Frost said. "Let's rename our union Madison + Vine + Valley and recognize that technology is enabling our audiences to do what they really want to do whenever, wherever."

Read the article: www.adage.com

Is Kiefer Sutherland trying to sell you something?

f there's one TV character you want on your side in the event of a national security threat, it's Jack Bauer, chief terrorist thwarter on the hit Fox series 24. Played with cool efficiency by Canadian Kiefer Sutherland, Bauer is the kind of guy who can crack computer codes, infiltrate criminal rings and avert nuclear devastation faster than most people can make a sandwich. By any definition, he's an all-American hero. Naturally, he drives a Ford.

That's because, after the first season of 24 emerged as a sleeper hit, the Ford Motor Co. signed a multi-million-dollar advertising deal with Fox -- the most far-reaching of its kind at the time -- to secure a piece of Bauer's cred for its brand. For two years, Ford sponsored the show's commercial-free season premieres, and in season three it bracketed the first episode with long-format, 24-themed ads. More importantly, the automaker "embedded" its vehicles into the action of the show, which is why Bauer does some of his best crime-fighting in souped-up Excursions and Expeditions.

"It's tastefully done so it's really not an issue for me," says Sutherland, who also serves as an executive producer. "And it helps fund the show since we don't have to buy the cars." There have been reports of the odd creative conflict -- like the time Ford proposed that Bauer cruise around L.A. in its new F-150 truck, which producers felt wasn't realistic for a government agent. (They settled for a "guest-starring" role for the F-150 as "a hazardous-materials vehicle.") But for the most part, relations have been affable. "Everything they've asked us to do has been pretty natural," says Jon Cassar, another executive producer. Ford only enforces one hard rule: no bad guys driving Fords.

In some ways, Ford's arrangement with 24 seems old hat. Product placement has been around in television since the '40s, when advertisers bought entire time slots for branded shows like The Texaco Star Theater. More recently, we've become accustomed to seeing familiar brands littered throughout TV families' kitchens and living rooms to add realism to the set. But increasingly, embedded advertising -- or "product integration" -- is becoming fundamental to how TV programs are conceived and produced. Corporations strike deals to have their brands built into the storylines of hit shows in order to piggyback on the emotional connections audiences have forged with the characters. A recent episode of ABC's Desperate Housewives, for instance, involved a lead character taking a job as a spokesmodel for Buick, a major show advertiser. Similarly, an upcoming episode of the CTV drama The Eleventh Hour will feature Nicorettes woven into a story about a character trying to quit smoking. For advertisers, this is simply one way of combatting unprecedented audience fragmentation and new technologies that allow people to zap through commercials. But for viewers, it's becoming increasingly tough to decipher when a Ford is just a Ford.

Read the article: www.macleans.ca

FTC: TV need not disclose product placements

The advertising industry apprently dodged a bullet when the U.S. Federal Trade Commission Thursday declined to require that television stations disclose all instances of paid product placements to viewers.

"A one-size-fits-all rule or guide would not be the most effective approach to addressing any potential for deception in some forms of product placement," wrote Mary K. Engle, associate director for advertising practices at the FTC.

Commercial Alert, a Portland, Ore.-based consumer advocacy group founded by Ralph Nader, had asked the FTC to require that television networks reveal all paid placements--both at the beginning of shows and at the time the placements appear. Specifically, Commercial Alert wanted networks to place the word "advertisement" on the screen during the paid placement.

The FTC yesterday declined to order such a disclosure on the theory that simply showing or mentioning a product without also touting its merits doesn't necessarily mislead or deceive viewers. "In product placement, few objective claims appear to be made about the product's performance or attributes," wrote Engle.

Read the article: www.mediapost.com

The value of free media

Free newspapers, free TV stations, free digital radio, free music downloads and free websites. It seems that the only thing no longer free in the media is the proverbial lunch. Last week Rupert Murdoch, the oracle of media profitability, found himself talking about free content encroaching on his businesses in both newspapers and on TV.

Metro, the free morning commuter paper, conceded Murdoch, had had a negative effect on sales of the Sun, and as a result Murdoch's News International is watching developments in the market "very, very closely". For Associated Newspapers, which launched the Metro concept in the UK in 1999, this is analogous to the tethered goat being told that the boa constrictor is watching its situation very, very closely. But what is the worst that could happen? Another free newspaper? As the old saying goes - you can't fall off the floor.

Transport for London is discussing the possibility of allowing a second free paper to be distributed, in the evening, in the tube - an option which has attracted interest from at least three national newspaper groups. Free newspapers are not new, but Metro has shown what was previously in doubt among the nationals, that the cover price does not necessarily determine the value of the audience to the advertiser.

It also opens up some uncomfortable truths about the modern media model. It is what Clay Shirky, US academic and writer on internet economics, describes as the "fame versus fortune" model - ie what happens when a medium becomes attractive for its reach rather than its revenue. If barriers to entry are sufficiently low (for instance publishing on the internet which costs nothing for one amateur) then free content flourishes because writers are motivated by exposure rather than money. The paid-for media have been snooty about free content on the web for a long time, but now the price of content is being driven down - and not just by the internet but by increased competition in the industry

Read the article: www.media.guardian.co.uk

Is instructional video game an oxymoron?

Hundreds of recent video games reward players for shooting villains, vaporizing monsters or solving puzzles. But only one encourages regular and rigorous hand washing.

That game, Stop Fluin' Around, came not from a major developer but from an alliance of several public interest groups, including the Partnership for Food Safety Education. Free on the Internet, the animated interactive game rewards players for answering questions like "Where can the flu hide?" (The answer to that one: on hands that have not been washed.)

Few would find it as compelling as video game best sellers like Grand Theft Auto or the alien-fighting Halo 2. But thrills are not the point. Stop Fluin' Around, which arrived in December, is one of dozens of instructional online games that public interest organizations, advocacy groups and government agencies say have become the best way to reach a generation of children and teenagers weaned on video games and the Web.

Some Web sites, like that of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, have had instructional games since the late 1990's. But according to Kurt D. Squire, an assistant professor of educational communication and technology at the University of Wisconsin, the use of such games is growing exponentially as more organizations see interactive games as a way to capture and hold the attention of people bombarded with numerous competing messages.

"In an era where you can't guarantee people are even watching television commercials, getting someone to interact for 15 or 20 minutes is just huge," Mr. Squire said.

Read the article: www.nytimes.com

Campbell's cooks up mobile game

In an effort to reach the coveted 18-34 market, the Campbell Soup Company recently partnered with VirTu Mobile, a mobile media company, to produce a 3D snowboarding game to promote Campbell's "Soup at Hand" brand, VirTu announced Wednesday.

The game, "Soup at Hand Snowboarding," has players snowboard down the slopes, accruing points by doing tricks and collecting Soup at Hand containers, which also extend the length of the game. The game is hosted on Soup at Hand's Web site, and promoted by banner ads on that site and on www.bonus.com, a mobile game developer who produced the game for VirTu and Campbell's. It is not hosted on Campbell's main page, and the Soup at Hand site is not linked from the main Campbell's page.

Read the article: www.mediapost.com